


Secrets Most Unnatural

by CaesiumDressing



Series: Huxloween 2017: Huxloween Rides Again [9]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Betrayal, Blood, Knives, M/M, Murder, no one is a good person, the dark side is strong in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 13:11:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaesiumDressing/pseuds/CaesiumDressing
Summary: Kylo Ren explores an ancient Sith temple in search of ancient secrets.





	Secrets Most Unnatural

Kylo Ren surveyed the front of the ancient Sith temple. Long ago plants and creeper vines had over taken the brooding facade of the building, but he could still feel it. Like a cold breeze from a cold chamber, the Dark Side of the Force rolled out into the muggy stillness of the jungle. Kylo gripped his lightsaber and stalked forward.

The moment he stepped past the boundary he found himself in absolute darkness and dead silence. The buzzing of insects and distant roars of fauna that had accompanied him for his trek were suddenly absent. It was deafening, and frightening in a way that he couldn’t describe.

As his head began to swim he realized he was holding his breath. He gulped in, the coolness of the air burning his lungs. He coughed, doubling over and trying desperately to catch his breath. For a few moments all Kylo could perceive was the muted echoes of his coughing and the shadows surrounding him. When he finally caught his breath he stood and flipped on a little lantern he had strapped to his belt.

The dim sphere of light barely illuminated the area four feet in front of him, but that didn’t surprise him. In places where Dark dwells, even photonic light made little difference.  Slowly he shuffled forward, listening hard to hear anything over his own breathing and the _shuff shuff_ of his boots against the cobble stone. There was nothing.

Kylo came to a split in the path. Ancient Sith was scrawled on the wall in some sort of luminescent substance. Kylo’s Sith was extremely rusty, but what he could gather was that the right lead to natural things, the world known. The left, however, seemed to indicate that unnaturalness lay ahead, things that were not meant for the weak to know.

That was what Kylo was here for, the greatest secrets of the Sith. Long had he searched the galaxy for the knowledge contained in this temple. Years of his life had been dedicated to finding this place for Snoke, but now it would serve its own purpose. He moved down the path without hesitation, broadening his shoulders and stalking forward.

“You really think you’re worthy, Jedi killer?” a deep voice hissed somewhere off in the structure. Kylo let it go. Engaging with illusions left by those who’d come before would do him no good here. The spirits lost in this temple were either those who came searching and died or those who were killed here as sacrifices to keep them from returning to the Force.

“Little Ben Solo, still filled with the light even now,” a separate voice mocked. Kylo felt his hand tighten on the hilt of his lightsaber. He focused himself on putting one foot before another, continuing into the dark. “You have so much gall to come into this place of pure darkness, to taint its knowledge with your light.”

Kylo felt something run across his back, long gashes had been rendered in his surcoat and the chill of the air rushed over his skin. A moment passed and then he felt the wells of blood in the tears of his robes. He grit his teeth and moved forward.

“I can see it in you, Ben Solo,” a low voice whispered, closer in the darkness than the others had been. “The rage welling inside, the pain and the loss, the hatred that grows each day.” He felt it now, a burning sensation, the skin around the gashes were bubbling as if coated in acid. He grimaced, knees shaking slightly, the pain engulfing every thought, but he pushed on.

He felt the walls open around him. Through a small hole in the ceiling a sickly stream of natural light streamed into the cavern he found himself in. Whether it was by design or by accident the light focused on a small cube seated on a stone pillar in the center of the massive chamber. Kylo stepped closer to examine the box.

 _Yes_ , he thought to himself. _This is it_. He reached one hand out to grasp it, but hesitated. What would the spirits of this place ask of him to gain this knowledge? The thought was fleeting, it didn’t matter anymore. Without this his existence would become meaningless, there was no time for hesitation. He grasped the holocron.

Suddenly he felt the world tip and he fell on his burning wounds. He tried to shriek, but no sound came out. He felt as if he was wrapped in a thick blanket, dizzy as if from sleep. A figure in a robe with the hood pulled up drifted to his side. Kylo tried to turn his head, but found he couldn’t. There was a sudden cold and lancing pain in his side just above his hip. Kylo gasped, again no sound being made and felt rage over take him.

It was a betrayal, almost as vicious and cruel as that of FN-2187. He had provided everything to this child, taught him the ways of the Force. He had made him so powerful in the Dark side and now he stood over him with a blade thick in his side.

Kylo felt his mouth pull into a smile. But there was something that even this foolish child did not know. He believed he knew everything, how to create and prolong life. He barely understood, and now that his master was dying he never would. The holocron he’d stored that knowledge in was hidden far away in the darkness of a temple long forgotten. Darth Plagueis huffed out a laugh as he died, letting his head roll to face Sheeve. For a moment Kylo thought he perceived a look of confusion and horror on the old man’s face, but in a moment the image scattered like dust. Kylo’s side ached and the cuts on his back felt white hot, but as he sat up he found that the holocron was still in his hand.

A tremor went through the temple. A vision played in Kylo Ren’s head and he lept to his feet. The holocron was the only reason this temple had not crumbled into dust long ago. He would be buried here with these specters for the rest of time if he didn’t leave now. Barely seeing anything ahead of him Kylo Ren ran back through the halls and through the entrance to the temple. Moments later the brick seemed to become liquid and puddle into the sunken footprint of the building that once stood there so proud. Kylo Ren glanced at his hand again, the holocron flashed in the sickly light from the planet’s star. He tucked it away in his robes to head back to his ship.

* * *

“Really, Ren,” Hux sneered, running a cold pad with disinfectant across the long scratch on his back. “I wish you would warn me when you go on these dangerous missions. Stumbling into my quarters in the middle of my sleep cycle bleeding and covered in mud is quite the rude awakening.”

Kylo grunted in reply. He had watched the holocron in the days it had taken him to return to the _Finalizer_. The secrets of Darth Plagueis ran through his head. He had understood that to create life you must sacrifice, but he didn’t know that the sacrifice would be quite so significant.

“Are you listening, Kylo?” Hux asked, placing the last bacta patch over his wounds.

“Huh?” Kylo replied, stumbling out of his thoughts.

Hux pursed his lips.

“I said,” Hux drawled. “The Supreme Leader has called us to Cantonica for a meeting tomorrow.”

Kylo blinked at Hux, not really processing the thought.

“You should get some sleep,” Hux fussed, closing up his first aid kit and slipping it back under his bed.

Hux slid off the bed to go clean his hands in the ‘fresher, but first he lifted his duvet and insisted that Kylo lay down. As soon as Hux had dropped the blanket and placed a kiss on Kylo’s forehead Kylo drifted to sleep.

* * *

 

Kylo Ren and Hux stood before the Supreme Leader in his throne room on Cantonica. He looked haggard. Hux was droning on with a mission report. Snoke listened to him with mild interest, but his eyes kept drifting to his apprentice. The young man seemed more uncomfortable than usual. As Hux finished his report Snoke sat back in his golden throne and folding his hands in his lap.

“And you, my apprentice. You seem distracted. What is it on your mind?” Snoke asked as gently as he could. He had never been able to get a handle on expressing empathy well, but he still tried. He was genuinely curious.

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren began. “I’ve been having visions in dreams,” he confessed.

Snoke nodded, once again leaning forward and folding his hands under his chin.

“And what are they of, to have disturbed you so?” Snoke asked.

“Of your death,” Kylo stated bluntly, a sheen of sweat appearing on his brow. The General at his side stumbled back, aghast.

“How dare you!” Hux shouted, face going as red as his hair. “Such an insult! Who do you think you are you massive, brainless . . .”

“Enough!” Snoke shouted, standing at his full height before the bickering men. He turned to address Hux directly.

“I am dying, Armitage Hux,” he stated plainly. There was no use in hiding it at this stage. He had known that his end was rapidly approaching but he had hoped to transition his power to his apprentice and co-commander without them knowing directly, but that was now off the table. There was a mean glint in the General’s eye. The same reason Supreme Leader Snoke promoted him in the first place. That ambition necessary for the ruler of the galaxy.

“You don’t need to,” Kylo Ren spoke up, staring at the Supreme Leader with wild eyes. Snoke faced him head tilted in question.

Everything happened at once. The General let out a scream as he was dragged to Kylo Ren’s feet by the Force. As Kylo grabbed the man’s flaming red hair and wrenched his head back Hux began screaming about trust and loyalty and love. With no sign of hesitation or remorse, Kylo Ren drew a dagger across Armitage’s throat.

Kylo Ren placed his hand over the large gash, letting the blood pool in the palm of his glove. He let Hux’s dying body fall to the floor at his feet. Kylo focused on the blood in his hand, pushing every ounce of power he had into precious pool in his hand. Slowly it began to solidify, more and more until it was a stone. Small, but it looked polished and shined in the light.

Snoke ambled down the stairs to his throne to stand before his apprentice. Kylo Ren knelt in the puddle of Armitage’s blood that had formed at his feet and held the red stone up for Snoke to take.

“I thought you loved the General?” Snoke said, confused.

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo started, “I have long studied the Dark Side under your wise tutelage. I understand now that only power matters. The General would have done nothing but struck me down when he ascended to the throne.”

The Supreme Leader nodded. He had only glimpses at the path his apprentice and The General would walk down after his passing, but this was one of the many futures he had foreseen.

“Now I may stay at your side so you may teach me more of the Dark Side,” Kylo finished, still bowed before the Supreme Leader.

Snoke curled his long fingers around the stone the Master of the Knights of Ren offered him. With a smile he slipped it into his robe.

“Rise, apprentice,” he said with a smile. “I have much to teach you.”

 


End file.
